Darkness filled the void with a thick, heavy veil. The void held nothing but the intimate nature of loneliness. Even so, it was not entirely empty; two figures stood staring opposite one another in the midst of it all. The duo stood several feet away from one another and yet their gazes never once faltered. Kaiba towered over the figure before him with his gaze blank of emotion. His cold, sapphire eyes never once missed an opportunity to analyze the man before him, searching for any and every imperfection.

His rival made no motion to observe him. The figure merely continued to stare at the brunet with a confident smile planted on its lips. There was never any motion to speak as there was no need to. The brunet observed the smirk written on the figure's face and scoffed. Something about that level of blatant confidence in faith irritated him. He noted, however, that his own irritation meant that the expression wasn't a total imperfection.

Yet, something was off. The physical similarities were uncanny, but yet something was missing. After careful observation, the problems weren't just physical. The figure before him wasn't his rival, not matter the physical similarity. He felt no adrenaline standing before him. There was no excitement in the possibility of reigning victorious over him. That was the imperfection that stood above all. Emotionally, the figure held no significance. It just wasn't him.

Kaiba released a low sigh and reached towards his temple. He clicked the button at the side of his headset. In an instant, the figure dissipated into the void. A bright white light shown through where he stood and collapsed the darkness surrounding the room.

The brunet opened his eyes to find himself in the middle of his office once again. Sunlight shone through the window panes in all directions causing him to squint slightly before quickly adjusting to the change. Kaiba took the headset off and stared at it in his grasp. There was still obvious work to be done. The system still held aspects of mediocrity.

"Seto?"

Kaiba's gaze traveled to the doorway of his office. "What is it, Mokuba?"

"What were you looking at? You've been standing there for several minutes."

The brunet cast his gaze back to the device. "It was nothing,"

Mokuba followed his brother's stare to the device in his hand and then looked back to the brunet. "Does it work?"

"It's imperfect," Kaiba replied. "The Solid Vision is beyond compare of anything Kaiba Corp has done before, but it fails in comparison to reality."

Mokuba looked to his brother until a smile soon appeared on his lips. "Well, I'm sure you'll fix it in no time, Bro!"

Kaiba smirked. "Of course."

O.O.O

"Was this the one?" Lydia asked as she held up a document.

"Yes, thank you," Kosei replied as he took the form. "What other forms do you have?"

"Well, these just came from HR and then the finance department just sent these over."

Kosei flipped through the files and sorted them accordingly. "That should be everything then,"

"What are all the files for?"

"It's mostly logistics and data that Kaiba Corp just sent over. The departments had to review the information and now we have to redistribute it."

Lydia gave a slow nod. "Is there anything else I can help with?"

Kosei thought for a moment. "If you're desperate enough, can you take these forms over to Finance?"

"Sure! Anything else?"

"No, you should be done for the day. I know you said you had other plans."

"Okay, I'll see you at home then?"

"Yeah, I'll be home in a couple of hours."

With their goodbyes said, Lydia threw her bag over her shoulder and left with the files. As she made her way across the building, she came to breathe in her surroundings. Although she knew the office and its functions since she was young, things suddenly seemed so much clearer to her recently. The inner workings of being an employee held so much more than merely watching everything from the outside; that was the one thing that excited her the most.

Stepping off of the elevator, the silence of the floor soon became noticeable. There was nothing but the distant clicking of computers and the muffled words of phone calls coming from the local offices. Reaching the end of the hall, Lydia came to a closed door with a large plaque plastered in the middle of it. She knocked at the door and waited until she was allowed entry.

"Uncle Junpei?" she called from the doorway.

"Hello, Lydia, what can I do for you?" he smiled to her.

She stepped into the office with the documents outstretched towards him. "I'm just here to drop these off. They're from my father."

"Oh, thank you. Kosei tells me you're interning now?"

"Yeah! I started last week."

"How are you enjoying it?"

"It's great! I'm still learning some basics but I'm sure I'll grasp it in no time."

"That's good to hear. Naoto was equally excited when he got the job a few years back."

Lydia raised an eyebrow. "He always seems like he hates the place though."

"Well, you know how he can be. He's always been a difficult personality. But I can tell he still loves working here."

"I'm not sure if he'd admit that though,"

'Maybe not outright, no. But Kosei and I are just glad that you guys are getting involved in the company and most of all enjoying it."

"Definitely."

"Well, enough chat; there's always work to be done. I look forward to hearing about your progress."

"Thank you, Uncle. It was nice talking with you."

"The same to you, kid."

Lydia stepped out of the office and made her way back across the hall. In passing, she glanced at a clock sitting atop the wall. I'm going to be late, she frowned. Picking up her pace, she soon rushed into the elevator and made her way to the ground floor. Coming out into the brisk fall air, she was met with a flurry of other people passing through. Although it was only afternoon, the city still bustled with its usual traffic.

Following a lengthy walk across town, Lydia came to the doors of the infamous Kaiba Corporation building. The walls towered over her and outshined every other skyscraper downtown just as it always has. Making her way through the door and surpassing the halls until she reached the top floor, she was finally met with the young CEO's office.

"Sorry I'm late!" Lydia announced as she entered the office.

The brunet merely glanced to her from behind his desk. "Hn, I'd have thought you to be more punctual,"

"I'm sorry, I had some things to finish up before I could leave."

Kaiba glanced to the employee badge attached to the lanyard around her neck. "Hmph, I see,"

Lydia nodded as she took a seat in front of the CEO's desk. Her gaze soon traveled to the contents that lay atop of it. In the midst of a pile of circuit boards and miniature computer chips sat a ring-shaped headset beside a helmet-like device which both were wired into his desktop computer. Kaiba followed her stare and continued to remove the contents from the desk.

"What are you working on?" she asked.

"A project," The brunet merely replied.

"You can't tell me about it?"

"Considering I run a multi-million-dollar company with patents at stake, no."

"It's not like I'm going to expose you or anything."

The brunet didn't reply and kept himself occupied to his task.

"Can I assume it's for dueling?"

"Congratulations, you've discovered that I run a gaming corporation." Kaiba said with the sarcasm practically dripping from his lips.

Lydia grinned. "Okay, it was a dumb question, sorry."

"Hn, to be fair, it wasn't the dumbest thing you've ever said."

"Oh, than—wait, hey!"

Kaiba smirked as he noticed the visible pout upon her expression.

"That was uncalled for," she shook her head.

"On the contrary, you'll find that it was."

"Why? What did I say before that was so dumb apparently?"

"A number of things, actually. Although, that offhand comment about not being a duelist seems to stick out."

Lydia blinked to him briefly. Really? Taking in the brunet's usual stoic expression, she soon burst into a fit of giggling. "That's it?" she laughed in disbelief.

Kaiba stared at her as he watched her try to suppress her laughter. "What's so funny?"

"Nothing, I was just expecting something worse. I'd hardly call that stupid."

The brunet smirked. "Would you rather I name other examples?"

Lydia's laughter began to subside. "No, that's okay. Well, if it makes you feel any better, I've considered getting into Duel Monsters."

"Really," His word remained monotone in delivery showing almost a false sense of interest.

"Yeah, I mean, I think working on this project really helped. After reading through all of those files, the technology is actually pretty interesting."

"Tch, I appreciate the compliment."

"You're welcome. Hey, maybe since you're such a genius in dueling then you could teach me."

"No," Kaiba's response came almost immediately.

"Why not?"

"I'm not some cheesy mentor from a bad eighties movie." Kaiba sat back in his chair with his arms folded firmly in front of his chest.

Lydia frowned. "Okay, I was just joking is all."

"You should really consider working on your humor then. It's rather dry."

"Speak for yourself, Kaiba. You're not as funny as you think you are."

"Hmm, I believe your fit of laughter moments ago begs to differ."

Lydia felt her face begin to flush. "It wasn't that funny." She mumbled.

"Hn, how reassuring," A smirk casually planted itself upon his lips.

Lydia watched as his ego inflated and began playing with strands of her hair. "We—well, shouldn't we be working on our project? You were the one who was so desperate to finish it."

Kaiba frowned as he turned his attention to his desktop computer. "If you insist,"

"Where did we leave off last time?" Lydia asked as she grabbed her laptop from her bag.

"The presentation portion. I took the liberty of finishing the editing of the research paper."

"Okay, that's not much; we should be able to finish today then."

Kaiba nodded as he pulled up their project onto his screen.

The duo sat in silence as they continued on with their work. The room held nothing but the distant clicking coming from both of their keyboards. After a few minutes, Lydia suddenly stopped typing. What if this was their last time seeing each other? No, surely, they would still see one another what with their companies working together, she realized. Still, the brief thought saddened her. As Kaiba previously stated, they were tolerable to one another. Lydia shook her head to rid herself of her distracting thoughts. She looked up and realized that she had been staring at the brunet. He felt her gaze upon him and glanced up to her, locking his sapphire eyes to her silver ones. She pulled her gaze away and refocused her attention to her computer screen. Eventually, Kaiba did the same.

Eventually, the final aspect of their project was complete. Kaiba rolled his neck to work out the stiffness that long plagued him. "I'll turn the project in on Monday before class." He announced.

"Oh, okay. I guess we're really done then." Lydia stated.

Kaiba gave a slow nod in response. "Indeed."

"Well, it's been nice working with you for the past several weeks." She extended a hand towards him across the desk.

Kaiba stared down to her outstretched arm and then turned his gaze to her face. She smiled to him waiting for him to accept her offer. After a moment, the brunet finally lifted his hand and grabbed her own to shake it.

"Hmph, it was a tolerable experience." Kaiba admitted. "At least you've proven to be less troublesome than I initially expected."

Lydia smiled as she released herself from his grasp. "That's good to hear. I expected your response to be more sarcastic."

"Well, don't expect to get used to me being considerate."

"I'll be cautious." She grinned. A pause soon fell over the duo; neither knew what to say next. "Well, I should go. But I'm sure we'll see each other again soon."

"Of course." Kaiba nodded.

"Bye, Kaiba,"

"Goodbye, Lydia,"

The brunet watched as she disappeared from his office as the door closed behind her. He continued to stare at the doorway as if waiting for her to come back in. Do I…? He shook his head quickly. Don't be ridiculous, he told himself. He couldn't afford to be caught up in that softhearted nonsense. It was always him and his brother against the world; there wasn't room to add anyone else in the mix, whether friend or more.

Hi, everyone! Another chapter down, wow! Hopefully this one wasn't too awkward or OOC in too many parts, there definitely might be some weird pacing in this chapter, oops. But hopefully some of that spicy dialogue can make up for it lol… anyway. Also can you guess what Seto's other big project is lol? Anyhoo, I hope you all enjoyed and I hope to see yall again soon! R&R!